


Things We Lost in the Fire

by Greenspoons



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 19:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3781495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenspoons/pseuds/Greenspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love was never in the cards, or was it only a matter of time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Lost in the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written to Of Monsters and Men's Silhouettes and Toni Braxton's Another Sad Love Song

A slant of light cuts a path through the bedroom, illuminating the man whom she'd patched up. Matt, or Daredevil, as he's known these days, looks more peaceful than she's ever seen him. Claire pulls her gaze away from his face, redirecting it to the crimson suit draped over the couch. He'd taken her advice and that is enough to make her smile.

As she was about to go fix herself a cup of coffee, she hears a groan and then a loud thump. Claire rushes over to his bedside only to see him smiling ruefully up at her. "Looks like I underestimated my injuries."

She helps him into a sitting position, shaking her head as she does it. "It's just a slight upgrade from your previous Under Amour getup. What were you expecting?"

"I thought I did pretty well going up against Fisk the last time. And the criminals haven't been having much firepower on their side lately." He admits, wincing slightly as the bruise on his lower arm makes contact with the nightstand.

Claire takes a long look at him, making sure that she has attended to all his injuries. "So, what's the story with this new suit?"

He settles himself in a comfortable position and pats the space next to him on the bed, gesturing to her with a tilt of his head. There were things she told herself that she could do and not do when she's with him, but this isn't one. "I asked around for the person who made Fisk's protective suits and they led me to Melvin Potter. He made this for me after I promised him protection from Fisk and his men."

"You made him a pinky promise and that's it? You got it for free?" Then again, she figures she shouldn't be too surprised. She is, after all, sewing him up for free.

"He asks only that I keep his girlfriend safe."

"He seems like a good guy," Claire says, taking the break in the conversation as her cue to get off the bed and finally have some caffeine in her system.

She starts to push herself up on her elbows when he touches her shoulder and she freezes. He hears her accelerated heartbeat and knows that he should let go, but he could afford to be selfish. This is the first time in two months that he has seen her and their bodily reactions tell him that they both want this. He is aware of the boundaries she has laid down and he completely understood and respected it. Hell, he wouldn't have it any other way. Still, it hurts him more than he'd liked to admit.

Reluctantly, he lets his fingers fall away from her shoulder. "Thank you, Claire."

She hears it in the way he utters her name. It is unlike how anyone has ever said her name as if it was liquid gold that he's too afraid to spill out of his lips. And then, she gets it. Now, it becomes all too clear why he hadn't bothered to put up a fight. Claire feels anger swell in her chest, rise behind her eyes because he doesn't think he deserves it.

"Matt," She starts, and he hums in response, and in his exhale, she realizes that he probably knows what she wants to say. "Have you ever considered the possibility of us?" 

A tense silence hangs in the air for what feels like an eternity until Matt swallows and forces himself to speak past the lump in his throat. "We both know that it's a bad idea."

"Do we really?" He hears her exhale softly, and perhaps a little brokenly.

He doesn't know what to say to that and instead brings his hand to her face, tracing his fingertips over her eyelids and along the line of her jaw. His thumb settles on the corner of her mouth before tracing the curve of her lips. He follows it with a gentle press of his lips on hers. It’s the barest press of lips that hardly makes up for many times he has wanted to kiss her since they last saw each other but it is enough. At least for now.

When he pulls away, his face is the emotionless blank that she has seen him wear when he’s under that mask. This time, Clare takes his hand in her lap, running her fingertips over his dusty knuckles, his calluses, the hollow of his palm, and when his eyelids flutters close, she lifts his hand to her lips.

"Matt," she says again, and this time the words are at the tip of her tongue. "You can't fix everything that is wrong with this world. Sometimes things happen for a reason, and perhaps yours was for you to become this person at night but that doesn't make every damn thing that goes wrong around here your responsibility. We all make our own choices and you shouldn't let what happened to your father take away your ability to make your own choices."

"Someone once told me that maybe my father hadn't died because of me. That he died because of his own pride." Matt says, lips barely moving.

“I don’t know about that,” Claire says, tracing a path from the discoloration on his temple that extends to his right cheekbone and stopping short of where his lip is beginning to clot. “None of us could know for sure.” She adds, sadly.

Matt shifts his head ever so slightly and looks at her general direction but his distant gaze doesn’t fix on her, it never does. He wonders about the devil in him, and if the desire he feels for Claire is the devil’s doing.

“Do you believe in the devil?” He asks, voice quiet.

She cards a hand through his hair, feeling the strands as it glides between her fingers while she contemplates her answer. “No,” She murmurs. “Some men are just born crueler than others and they’re simply putting the blame on the devil because it’s the only explanation that we’re willing to accept.”

He lets out a soft sigh. “Maybe we’re not ready for this.”

*****

By the time she is finally able to call it a day, it is already late in the afternoon. She pushes through the double doors of the hospital, only to see a familiar figure dressed in a slate-grey suit with a black skinny tie and a white cane in his hand, waiting for her by a cluster of trees. It is surprising to see him here, more so because she has never told him where she worked at.

As he makes his way towards her, a smile breaks out over his handsome features and she responds in kind. “Thought I might get lucky,” Matt says.

“How did you know?” She asks.

He shrugs, “Foggy told me that you attended to him on the night of the explosion.”

Claire throws an exasperated look at him and somehow gets the feeling that he could sense it. “Since when are we seeing each other when you’re not literally holding in your guts?”

“I didn’t want you to think that I’m only using you for your medical expertise.” He confesses, eyes downcast.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that it’ll look impressive on my resume if I were to list it under the skills section?”

“Can’t say I have,” Matt says, and that smile of his makes an appearance. It isn’t that smile he deploys so often to put his clients at ease, nor is it the one she catches him wearing when he thinks she isn’t looking.

“Now you know,” Claire says, laughing and allows him to take her arm in his. “So where are you taking me?”

“You’re hungry,” He says, as if he hasn’t heard her and she doesn’t need to ask him because moments later, she heard the growl of her own stomach.

“Most people would agree that being able to hear when someone’s hungry is a very creepy thing.” She remarks, sounding the most carefree he’s ever heard her.   
.  
"Foggy thinks it’s creepy too,” It is now his turn to laugh and Claire can’t say that she doesn’t enjoy the sound of it. 

“Foggy.” She echoes, more than a little curious. “How did _that_ came about?”

"We used to be rather wild back in our college days— well, him mostly," Matt amended, and of course doesn't see the surprise that flits across her face at that revelation. "Contrary to what he tells everyone, he smokes pretty much everything he can get his hands on. So yeah, Foggy stuck."

"And you didn't? I mean, smoked none of it?" Claire asks.

"I tried once, it was too overwhelming," Matt says.

They came to a halt at a hole-in-the-wall cafe that lacked signage but Matt doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that it's so. Claire is doubtless that he would have picked up on her hesitation but he merely smiles in that reassuring way of his.

The smell of coffee greets her and Claire has her confidence restored almost instantly. Behind her, Matt tips his head in a greeting to the barista and the lady at the cashier. It doesn't take too long before the barista places two coffees on their table and a plate of all-day breakfast that came highly recommended by Matt.

"How did you know about this place?" She asks between mouthfuls of bacon.

A faint smile turns up the edges of Matt's mouth as he puts down his cup of long black. " Me and Foggy used to come down here for breakfast when we were studying," He explains.

"You're smiling again," Claire points out.

"I could hear how quickly you're eating," Matt says, amusement coloring his voice. 

Has it been anyone else, she would have felt self-conscious, but not with him. "I've been running near-empty for longer than I usually could."

Matt nods, his sunglasses shining with reflected light. "I've been thinking about what you said the other day. About us."

She only hums in response because she can't shake the feeling of inevitability, given the turn that this conversation has taken.

Matt removes his sunglasses and folds them neatly on the table, reaching for Claire's hand that is no longer holding the cutleries. Her fingers returns the pressure of his own. "I have put enough lives in harm's way, but I'll never be able to forgive myself if the same ever happens to you." He paused, and then, "Especially you, Claire." She notices how her name rolls off his tongue like a prayer, a promise most sacred.

She senses a _but_ coming, so she stays silent for more of what he has to say. 

"We could try," he says after what seems like a long stretch of time has passed. "And I want you to think it through again." 

Claire is acutely aware that the dynamics of their relationship is about to get a whole lot more complicated as if it wasn't already. The Russians may have been long gone, but the memory of a fake badge and a fire extinguisher is never far from her mind. She knows how this could have turned out differently, had she not glimpsed the bloody, broken figure in the dumpster, but then again, she could never turn away from a such a situation. In spite of how badly she wants to put the blame on his one-man crusade, she knows she can't. There are dark corners in her apartment that she’ll never entirely chase away and whether she likes it or not, it's part of her life now. As is Matt.

"It's what I want for us," she says, looking down at their entwined hands, and at the world reflected in his clear eyes.


End file.
